Category: Shallow

Joseph Kahn and Warner Bros. are betting $30 million that you are stupid.
Torque opens this friday after some minor delays. Apparently the geniuses at Warner Brothers decided that not only would no one want to see a movie about a stubbled, pretty boy biker framed for murder, but also that no one would take a movie with a name like Torque seriously. Warner Brothers had a big marketing powwow, discussed the shortcomings of the film, the challenge of selling the same tired story once again, and they decided, after interminable minutes of debate, What the fuck—let’s throw this piece of shit at 1200 screens and see if it sticks.
I predict a $20 million opening weekend.
Torque is helmed by Joseph Kahn, a director with the distinction of sharing Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and Chris Cunningham‘s music video pedigree while possessing none (not a whit) of their visual or storytelling talents. Kahn has directed clips for Eminem, U2, Moby, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Garbage, so you know he’s ready to graduate to the big time and direct some big screen, um, garbage. After all, it’s every music video director’s god-given right to tackle a major motion picture: Spike and Michel have found successful second careers on the silver screen. Earlier, David Fincher, Antoine Fuqua, F. Gary Gray, Hype Williams, and others made the leap with varying degrees of success. What do those losers have that Joseph Kahn doesn’t? (Talent for one thing.)
What Kahn has, which those guys never will, is the insane envy of his former high school classmates. Check out what someone named Cinema Lover wrote on the IMDB‘s message board:

I went to high school with Joseph Khan back in the early 1990’s. We were both at Jersey Village High School in Houston, TX back in the early 90’s.
Man Joseph must be getting some crazy p*ssy these days, what with being a reputable music video director and now a director of a major motion picture like “Torque”. He’s directed Britney, Beyonce, Jaime Pressley….DAMN! I remember he was a little goofy looking, and kinda ugly Asian dude, but we all know that Power==Hot P*ssy.
Like Tiger Woods, I imagine Joe having sex with tons of hot blonde women on a big pile of cash.
Jesus, when I think about it I feel so freakin’ small. To think this dude was in my history class, he always had a camcorder with him, and his passion for filming people obviously paid off. Though even back then he was probably getting a lot of p*ssy, just because even in the early 90’s he was directing up and coming hip hop acts in Houston while he himself was still a teenager.
Damn I feel small.

(Cinema Lover? Playa Hater is more like it!) Maybe Kahn won’t win any gold statuettes for Torque, but he already has something a whole lot better: the glare of the green eyed monster. (Oh, and all that Hot P*ssy!)
I’m betting that like its Diesel-burning older brothers The Fast and the Furious, XXX and the stinky cinematic skid marks 2 Fast 2 Furious and Biker Boyz, Torque is a visually-dazzling but completely incoherent exercise in rapid-fire editing, leaden sub-porn film acting, and relentless product placements. Boo-ya!

If that’s the case, why not go for the other Tork—Peter Tork of the Monkees— and rent Head from your friendly neighborhood indie video store this Friday. Written—between hits of the kindest California bud available in 1968—by Jack Nicholson and directed with an “ah, whatever” attitude by Bob Rafelson, it’s the antidote to the slick, Hollywood youth-oriented releases that glut multiplexes mall-over America like so many Mrs. Fields’ cookies full of arsenic.
Actually, who am I kidding? Head is a piece of shit. But it’s probably better than Torque and at least it’s been remembered 36 years years after its release. Oh, and you can be sure Bob Rafelson’s high school classmates are eating their hearts out over all the p*ssy he got in the 70s, what with being a reputable film director and all.
Damn, I feel small even pointing it out.

With the recent release of Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film, Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein has been coming in for some serious bashing lately. It’s easy to take shots at Harvey: if ever there was a big, slow-moving fish in a barrell, it’s Miramax’s bully-boy king.
But what about Harvey the Nice Guy? Harvey who tackles even the smallest of tasks. Harvey who relieves his overworked underlings and does things like calling to ensure that packages made it to their recipients. Harvey who just called to say “I love you.”
To find that Harvey, you have to read Sharon Waxman’s article Lobbying for Golden Globes Is a Hollywood Ritual in today’s New York Times:

Three days before the close of voting on the Golden Globe nominations last month, the phone rang at the home of a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the people who vote on the awards.
“This is Harvey Weinstein,” said the voice on the other end of the line, the member said. “I’m calling about Bad Santa. ”
The member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the caller, who was the co-executive producer of that film and the Miramax co-chairman, “Mr. Weinstein, I loved the movie.”
“Oh,” came the reply, then a click.

If you think that sounds like Bad Harvey-style intimidation, you are wrong! Very wrong. According to Amanda Lundberg, a Miramax spokesperson quoted by Waxman, Harvey was just “confirming their receipt of late-arriving cassettes, which in our case was Bad Santa. If members told him what they thought of the movie, he didn’t ask for it. It was an unsolicited comment.”
Take that, Harvey haters! He was just being polite, on-the-ball, and decent. Why would we ever expect anything less from him?

It’s revenge of the nerds night on Bravo.
How else to describe the lineup on Celebrity Poker Showdown of Willie Garson, David Cross, Richard Schiff, and Paul Rudd. (One of these things is not like others, it’s true: but despite Rudd’s good looks, his status as every indie girl’s heartthrob—he was soooooo adorable in Wet Hot American Summer!!!—makes him a nerd by proxy. They’re also playing with Nicole Sullivan late of Mad TV who’s also something of a nerd.)
Maybe the producers of Celebrity Poker Showdown were inspired by Ben Mezrich’s geeks versus card sharks bestseller, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions. Or maybe they’ve run out of good-looking stars who know the rules of the game. One thing’s for sure: a lot of makeup was required to get the shine off three-fifths of the players’ pates tonight.
Tune in at 9PM EST to see which nerd triumphs and which cry all the way to the Tri-Lam house.

What is the deal with Quentin Tarantino and masturbation? Why does the musky odor of onanism hover around the Kill Bill director like the visible stink lines that emanate from Peanuts‘ Pigpen?
Last week in “The Year in Movies,” Slate‘s raucous film critic caucus, the conversation between David Edelstein, A.O. Scott, J. Hoberman, Sarah Kerr, and Manohla Dargis practically devolved into a circle jerk about whether or not Tarantino is jerking off on film.
Sarah Kerr of Vogue spanks Tarantino first in an entry headed “Quentin Tarantino’s Masturbation”:

On to Kill Bill for a moment. Jim, do you really think Tarantino is a victim of the system? I think we’re a victim of his not writing a screenplay, indulging in a quite boring obsession with his leading lady, and essentially masturbating on screen, with the gall to invite us back for a second installment. I hated Kill Bill not in a tsk-tsk, scolding way but because it induced boredom to the level of panic—a desire to flee the theater—and self-pitying rage that work required me to stay put.

David Edelstein, Slate‘s resident critic and “Year in Movies” host busts off his own critical nut graph, dense with particularly loaded imagery:

As is often the case, Sarah, you nail Kill Bill but you end up on the wrong side of the equation. You say that Tarantino is “essentially masturbating on screen, with the gall to invite us back for a second installment.” I say it’s rather entertaining to watch this guy’s masturbatory fantasies, especially when they’re epic. N.B.: This is NOT a general principle, but for some artists, masturbatory fantasies and art are very close-knit.

(Let’s assume he’s referring to Brian De Palma—a filmmaker whose very name recalls a naughty reference to masturbation—whom Edelstein has taken a number of well-deserved whacks at over the years. The fact that all those reviews contain references to math or trigonometry may bespeak the critic’s own particular fixations, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Manohla Dargis shoots her own load with her response: “I don’t want to watch anyone’s masturbatory fantasy unless I’ve specifically skulked in and out of my neighborhood video store or am watching pay-for-view in my lonely Lost in Translation-style hotel room and have nothing better to do.”
Since “The Year in Movies” ran every day last week, the Slate crew continued their critical beat-down of Tarantino’s cinematic beat-off sessions for another two days, always with the smirking, knowing tone of those who know that there’s a thin line between criticism and its pathetic cousin, wankery.
So, I ask again, what is it about Quentin Tarantino that makes dirty minds of all these high-minded folks? Certainly it’s the 10 minute sequence of Uma Thurman’s feet in Kill Bill and the fact that Tarantino is not only unabashed about his love of exploitation flicks (veritable booby parades when not displaying acting so bad it could be used as a “how-not-to” teaching tool for aspiring thespians) but celebratory to the point of ecstasy.
But maybe the real stain comes from creepy comments like the ones Tarantino made while stroking Lost in Translation at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards (here quoted by Page Six): “At some point, I got a crush on the movie… I’ve seen it five times and every time I’ve seen it I’ve had a little date with myself.”
So, Quentin, here’s some free advice if you want to avoid being seen as the film world’s answer to Alexander Portnoy: keep it in your pants, man. Maybe people won’t think you’re such a wanker.

“Ms. Silverman also confirmed that her friend [Lizz Winstead] is narcoleptic. ‘Did she tell you that?’ Ms. Silverman asked. ‘She has no problem taking pills to make her stay awake. Otherwise, she’s out by 9.’ Ms. Winstead’s condition was diagnosed about 15 years ago,” Lefty Radioheads Bite Back by Rachel Donadio, The New York Observer Jan. 7, 2004.
“[Jimmy Kimmel] did not own a jacket, and besides, he’s mostly colorblind. He is also narcoleptic, but that’s another story,” In the Land of the Insomniac, the Narcoleptic Wants to Be King by Bill Carter, The New York Times Magazine, Nov. 3, 2002.

Comedian and free-range provocateur Mort Sahl is interviewed by Stephen Thompson in this week’s Onion A.V. Club (which may or may not be a reprint of an older interview). Having recently watched the 1989 documentary Mort Sahl: The Loyal Opposition as part of Trio‘s “Uncensored Comedy Month,” I was expecting some great insights from the man who pioneered radical political humor fifty years ago at a time when most comics were still wearing tuxedoes on stage and asking us to please take their wives. (You can watch a Quicktime clip of him in action here.)
With his everyman uniform, relaxed posture, and ever-present newspaper under his arm, Sahl was the living embodiment of Norman Rockwell’s painting Freedom of Speech, questioning, mocking, and needling pieties of the Right and the Left. As shown in the documentary, Sahl sort of went off the rails after JFK was killed, reading lengthy excerpts from The Warren Commission Report onstage. Eventually, he retreated into a satellite-TV equipped fortress of solitude where he continues to read dozens of news magazines a month, keeping up on current events but keeping his opinions mostly to himself.
Unfortunately, The A.V. Club interview is sort of slow going and, in some passages, a bit incoherent. I’m not sure whether this was due to difficulty editing down a long interview, or if Sahl’s thoughts ricochet at such odd trajectories that following them is impossible. Also, Sahl repeatedly contradicts himself: despite Thompson’s admirable attempt to nail Sahl down on why he’s written jokes for Ronald Reagan and George Bush (it’s not specified if they’re talking about Bush 41 or Bush 43), he somehow wriggles free and never quite answers the question. (“Reagan had a pretty ready sense of humor, although they were basic jokes—anti-Communist jokes and all. So I just found it easier…”)
Reading the whole thing, though, I was able to pan a little gold. Here’s Sahl talking almost directly to his closest contemporary progeny (both in intellectual and linguistic nimbleness and political Rightward slouching), Dennis Miller:

I dare say that if most comedians today, the gifted ones, were to sit down and write, they’d learn more about their craft. But what happens is they get out there before they learn what their viewpoint is, if any. They’re all sort of pseudo-Republicans. In case they make money, they’re Republicans. In the unlikely event they’re successful. [Laughs.]

And here’s Sahl talking to Conan O’Brien, Tina Fey, and David Letterman:

You’ve got a society that not only isn’t courageous, but even the apprehension of discomfort makes them roll over. Three years later, the late-night comedians are still making fun of George W. Bush being dense, right?
[…]
When people write comedy from neutrality, it just gets kind of silly. A lot of the guys are invested, like that Saturday Night Live crowd, in rebellion against authority, and that makes them indiscriminate. They only hate a guy because he’s in leadership. But they don’t really pin the fact that he’s a war criminal on him.

One last thought from Mort before he disappears back into isolation: “The relentless liberalism of the comedians is awful, too. We could use one good Leftist instead of all those liberals. [Laughs.] Or one good Rightist, if he had a sense of humor. The righteousness is what kills me in a lot of these people. They’re so right about everything, and so pious. Where did the fun go?”

Fans of Shopsin’s, the totally sui generis restaurant-cum-mad scientist lab in the West Village are about to have their favorite spot’s cover blown big time.
As readers of Calvin Trillin’s amusing New Yorker article, “Don’t Mention It” (April 15, 2002) might recall, Shopsin’s is an extremely eccentric little restaurant where you can experience Cotton Picker Gumbo Melt Soup or Pecan Chicken Wild Rice Cream Enchilada, or literally dozens of other dishes you will never see anywhere else. (According to blogger Rachelle Bowden there are over 100 soups on the menu which is available as a PDF file on their Web site. It’s 11 pages long and denser than a Dr. Bronner’s Soap label.)
In addition to the weird menu, there are the weird rules. Writes Trillin:

For years, a rule against copying your neighbor’s order was observed fairly strictly. Customers who had just arrived might ask someone at the next table the name of the scrumptious-looking dish he was eating. Having learned that it was Burmese Hummus—one of my favorites, as it happens, even though it is not hummus and would not cause pangs of nostalgia in the most homesick Burmese—they might order Burmese Hummus, only to have Eve shake her head wearily. No copying. That rule eventually got downgraded into what Ken called “a strong tradition,” and has now pretty much gone by the wayside.

Shopsin’s is about to go huge as I Like Killing Flies, a documentary by photographer, graphic artist, and music video vet (and notorious O.J. Simpson Time Magazine photo manipulator) Matt Mahurin is now part of The 2004 Sundance Film Festival’s Documentary Competition.
I hope I Like Killing Flies gets distribution, since I’m curious to see it and learn more about the inner workings of Shopsin’s and Kenny and Eve Shopsin, the owners and sole employees. I’m a bit surprised they agreed to the film, since Trillin paints a portrait of Kenny as, how shall I put this, a tad publicity shy: ” I’ve managed to write about Shopsin’s from time to time, always observing the prohibition against mentioning its name or location.” (Later in the same piece, Trillin admits that Kenny softened towards the press after he was forced to briefly close and relocate his restaurant: “[N]ot long ago Kenny told me that it was no longer necessary to abide by the rule against mentioning the place in print.” Phew!)
Here’s a prediction: We can expect articles on Kenny and Eve Shopsin cropping up in The New York Post, New York Magazine, Will Ferrell behind the counter at the grill, perhaps?) and elsewhere in the months following Sundance. I hope Shopsin’s can weather the publicity storm. But then again, after doing their own thing for so many decades, it’s probably pretty gratifying to see people lining up outside their restaurant. I just hope everyone remembers to turn off their cell phones and keep their parties under 4.

Further proof that critics sometimes actually speak—and think—in blurbs, The Times‘ A.O. Scott goes back to his lit crit roots in Slate‘s annual “Year in Movies”:

I happened upon this piece, in which Louis Menand breezily mocks the conventions of year-end list-making (without, of course, deigning to suffer what he rightly calls the “anguish” of making his own list). The piece is funny and well worth reading, if a bit glib.

Somehow I think that if articles had posters, this quote would be shortened to “‘Funny! Worth Reading!’—Slate“. (Of course Peter Travers said of the same piece: “Astounding! Will Make You Stand Up and Cheer—Even if you’re reading it on the Toilet!”—Rolling Stone)

REGIS FELINE BLUE AFTER HIS GLAMOUR PUSS PURRS HIS LAST
By MICHAEL STARR
A tearful Regis Philbin bid a fond farewell to his family’s beloved cat, Ashley, on yesterday’s “Live with Regis & Kelly.”
Regis Loses a Cat
I was moved yesterday by Regis Philbin’s announcement that his cat, Ashley, had passed away. I remember the early stories of Ashley when he had to have a tooth pulled. Regis is an excellent imitation of him then. That’s more than 15 years ago. My sympathies to Regis, Joy, JJ and Joanna. (Roger Friedman)